A deadpan press release from security specialists NDS this morning, which simply states that:
“NDS, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, currently supplies Telecom Italia’s IPTV service with NDS VideoGuard®, the world’s most deployed conditional access (CA) and DRM technology which provides content protection for both broadcast TV and Video on Demand (VOD).”
Given that Telecom Italia had previously stated that it had contracted with Microsoft to roll out its Mediaroom IPTV platform (which integrates its DRM product), this announcement tells us two things: (a) that Mediaroom has not yet been rolled out across the Telecom Italia network, two and a half years on; and (possibly) (b) that Telecom Italia has elected not to use Mediaroom for its IPTV rollout after all.
My guess is that both (a) and (b) are true, as suggested in a previous post here last year (and frankly, I can’t see any other reason for NDS to make such an announcement). Microsoft may have become a victim of the fact that Alcatel-Lucent, which had originally been supplying its own IPTV technology to TI alongside NDS’s security solutions, has gone a bit lukewarm about the subsequent reseller agreement it entered into with Microsoft for the Mediaroom IPTV product.
(NB Both NDS and Microsoft Mediaroom are sponsors of this blog)
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